


Punish The Vine

by Unfair_Verona



Category: Alias (TV)
Genre: Enemies to Lovers, F/M, Lust, Sexual Content, Sexual Tension
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-03-06
Updated: 2017-03-06
Packaged: 2018-09-28 14:51:16
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,927
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10120802
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Unfair_Verona/pseuds/Unfair_Verona
Summary: The best wine, he would tell her, was made from grapes that had suffered.Sydney and Sark spend an unlikely year together.





	

**Author's Note:**

> Just a weird fic I wrote as a way to get out my random Sarkney feels. I had to take a wine class at the restaurant where I work and then after I decided to rewatch my favorite seasons of Alias and thus this thing was born. Let me know what you think!

**October**

He just wanted to get closer to her. It didn't matter if he and Sydney Bristow were trying to kill each other, Julian Sark had an all-consuming, burning need to insinuate himself into her life in some manner. Because he knew that they had an entangled destiny. His heart started beating a little faster the moment he'd first encountered her face to face: there was a curious alive-ness in his blood that had not been there before. He felt the hand of fate crawling along the back of his neck like a spider. If only she didn't despise him so thoroughly....he often wondered if she really did. But yes, that fire in her eyes that seared him was pure and beautiful hate. The strange thing was, he wouldn't trade it for lukewarm indifference. No, hatred was passionate. She thought about him; he evoked a response. For some reason, this was very important.

He had a weird tingling in his blood now, it had begun with the start of autumn and had only grown as the days shortened and the air chilled: Sark recognized it as his Sydney-sense. It meant that he would be seeing her soon. He couldn't explain it rationally, he just knew. Leaning against the bar, he frowned down at the Pinot Noir in his glass. It was too sweet, too weak. 

 

X

 

**February**

"I wish it could have been different," Sark said plainly. Sydney's eyes flashed and narrowed. A grating laugh climbed out of her throat. They'd been, through the cruel humor of the universe and Milo Rambaldi both, thrown together once more, tenuously working towards a similar goal. Sark found this delightfully serendipitous. Sydney did not.

"Oh, do you? You mean, you wish that I'd actually been brainwashed? That I'd actually murdered your father?"

"No, nothing that simple." He calmly poured himself a glass of Chianti and her eyes followed his movements, her spine tense. She was bracing herself for a fight, and he admired the look of her, taut like a bowstring. 

"Then what?" she spoke around gritted teeth. 

"I'll explain another time, Sydney," he said, taking a sip. "Now try to get some sleep."

X

The most sensible thing would be to kill him and run, or so it appeared. But there was no sense to Sydney's life now, and this made her pause. Everything had been turned upside down so abruptly, she needed to steady the too-fast whirling earth and draw a few solid deep breaths. Her father was dead. Her mother may or may not have betrayed her. Again. The Covenant was still after her, according to them she was still the Chosen One. Vaughn had gotten married to a double agent. And here she was, with Sark, of all people, chasing down another Rambaldi artifact.

"Thinking about _her_?" She asked icily, a sneering, mean smile pulling at the corners of her full lips as she pictured the blonde agent who had almost played them all.

"Jealousy is not attractive, Sydney," he said, taking a sip directly from the bottle this time. It wasn't very good Chianti anyway. 

"Ha! Jealousy, that's rich."

"Well," Sark chose his words carefully, "she did manage to seduce your beloved Michael Vaughn."

"She was good at her job," Sydney admitted. Her voice was still cold and hard. "But not quite good enough, as it turns out. Do you miss her?"

"She had many great qualities. I'll miss those about her."

"So, you won't miss her as a person?"

"Sydney, I hardly _knew_ her as a person. Our enemies, them we can know. We see them, we're certain of where they stand: in opposition to us. We know our enemies so much more intimately than our supposed friends. To better answer your question, she had many qualities that I appreciated."

"Good in bed?"

He narrowed his eyes at her. "Don't be petty."

"I'm _not_ , it's a valid question."

"Yes, she was. She was very energetic and we shared similar predilections."

Sydney decided that she'd rather not know more about that, though now she had a weird, hot, squirmy feeling in her stomach, which she chalked up to revulsion. "So you didn't love her?"

Now he laughed. "Good God, Sydney, no! I told you, I hardly knew her."

In truth, Sark wished he could have loved Lauren. Maybe it would have made everything easier. But in the end, even she had been another bizarre way to be close to Sydney, to invade and infect every corner of her life like a parasite so that with everything she touched and everywhere she looked she was reminded of him. 

X

"I'm going to kill you before all of this is over," Sydney promised, from where she was sitting across from him. The motion of the train as it rumbled through the countryside was doing some not-unpleasant things to her body, and she wondered when she had gotten so...sensitive. She was threatening a man's life, after all, and it felt wrong to be experiencing...excitement whilst doing so. 

He liked the look of her while she promised to end him. He always had. Sark had realized this during one of their earlier encounters, where she'd fired a barrage of shots at him while he observed her safely from behind bulletproof glass. Standing there, looking down at her, her beautiful face twisted with murderous intent, he'd gotten almost painfully hard. 

As she glared at him, late afternoon sunlight fell across her face, warm and gold, bringing out more flecks of color in her eyes. 

"I look forward to it," he deadpanned, then closed his eyes and fell asleep.

He awoke to her elbow in his ribs and light in his eyes. "Get up," she said. "We're almost in Prague." Outside the windows, fat flakes of snow were falling. 

"Lovely." His eyes felt gritty. "Did you sleep?" he asked her, taking in the dark circles beneath her eyes and the slight pallor of her skin. "You look tired."

"None of your business," she hissed.

 

X

 

**May**

It was unseasonably hot and he was drinking wine, naturally. The flowers outside the villa had bloomed lushly and the scent was causing Sydney's head to swim. It seemed to just be making Sark feel poetic.

"We have a destiny," he decided, swirling the Cabernet in his glass.

"We have no such thing," she said, putting her nose in the air, brushing the damp locks of hair off of her sweaty neck. It was far too warm to be talking about destiny, a concept that Sydney found abhorrent.

"Oh, come now, don't lie to yourself." Sark sounded almost amused. His eyes were too-blue and Sydney avoided looking directly into them. "You've known it from our first meeting," he continued. 

She wondered which first meeting he was referring to, then realized it didn't matter. Because he was right. Maybe not about destiny, but there had been a strange alteration to her universe when she and Sark had first crossed paths, like a sting of electricity prickling along her skin. Their fights left her with a dizzy adrenaline rush, more potent than the norm. Honestly, in the library, when they'd looked right at each other, his gun trained on her as he proposed a partnership, she'd felt almost giddy with anticipation of their impending fight. So giddy that she'd even allowed herself to flirt a little.

"I knew you'd be a constant thorn in my side," she conceded. 

"And you could have killed me at least a half-dozen times, but you didn't."

She shrugged. "You have valuable intel."

"Oh yes, there's that," he said with a nod as he unbuttoned a few buttons on his shirt. The motion, and subsequent exposed skin, irritated her. "But also, I think you'd miss me too much."

"You're drunk." Sydney folded her arms.

"I'm not. And you would miss me. I keep your life exciting."

"You're an excitement I could do without," she grumbled, then spent a moment pondering her own words.

He smiled crookedly. "I'm familiar. I'm something that you can be sure of, a constant in your world. As I said, you know where I stand."

"In my way, all the time," she said, reaching over and snatching the bottle of wine from the table.

"And that comforts you on some level," Sark went on. "All around you, chaos reigns, but in the midst of it I am always there, waiting. Waiting for you. For the next battle, the next scar."

There was something startlingly clear about what he was saying, Sydney recognized the truth in his words and it made her feel angry and tired, made her want to lash out. So she did, hitting him across his pretty, lopsided mouth, not too hard but enough to swell his lip. He barely moved, in fact he smiled. Sydney took a swig from the bottle. 

"See?" Sark said, grinning wider, showing his teeth. "That's exactly what I'm talking about."

"You're insane," she snarled, stalking out of the room. 

X

**June**

It wasn't as hot, now, on the longest day of the year as it had been the month before. Rather it was pleasantly warm. Sydney found herself reflecting on the past several weeks, where some unexpected occurrences had left her brooding over the exact nature of her current relationship with Julian Sark. She took a sip from the glass of local mead in front of her and winced at the overwhelming burst of sweetness on her tongue. 

"I know," he said, coming to stand beside her. "It's dreadful, isn't it? I can't see the appeal, why is everyone enjoying this?" He looked around at the guests who were gathered out on the lawn of the large estate. They were all Druids or Witches or some such nonsense, gathered for a celebration at the home of a very wealthy and occult-minded museum curator with Rimbaldi connections. 

Sydney shrugged, and Sark took a moment to enjoy her tanned shoulders, the jut of her collarbones. Her hair was loose and wild, falling in soft waves to her shoulders and she wore a green dress that looked like something an ancient priestess would wear. "It's Midsummer. It's a big holiday for them."

"That's still no excuse for this swill," he declared, pouting down at the golden-colored liquid. "What's supposed to happen on Midsummer?"

She leaned against the balcony. Overly sweet or not, the mead was strong and it was going to Sydney's head. "I think it's when the fairies come out and mess with unsuspecting humans."

" _What fools these mortals be_ , he quoted, smiling at her and for a second everything seemed to slow down, grow thick, and Sydney shook herself back to reality and set her mouth in a line.

"Why do you keep helping me?" she ground out. "What's in it for you?"

"Don't you know?" Sark asked. "I'd miss you too much if you were gone. We all need something to live for, some spark inside that makes it all worthwhile. I like having you in this world, knowing that you're there, that we can exist together, even if we're fighting each other."

"Maybe you need me. But I don't need you." The words tasted strange, metallic.

"You do, dear Sydney," he said, looking away, out at the now-setting sun, a shadow painting through his eyes, making them look like a storm. "You'll realize it before the end."

 

X

 

**August**

The kiss was like an electric burn, so charged that it made Sydney jump, then pulled her under. She attacked Sark with her lips and hands, loving the way he tasted, crashing herself violently against him. Love didn't feel this good.

Dragged closer into dark and blissful waves, she was rough, and she could tell that was exactly what he wanted, felt him moan into her mouth, making a shiver pass through her as heat pooled in her center. She climbed into his lap, her fingers yanking at the buttons on his expensive shirt, pulling it off of him so that she could mar the pale skin of his torso and back.

His hands slid eagerly up under her shirt and cupped her breasts, rubbing his thumbs over her nipples, the touch sending a frisson of arousal right to her pussy, and she wiggled a little on his lap, grinding against the large bulge in his pants.

He gripped her hips and arched up, pressing himself harder into her. He growled and lifted her, she barely registered that they were moving at all until she was laying on the bed and he was working her skirt down her legs and off. He looked down at her as his hands found the edge of her silk underwear and then something inside of her cracked, jarring her fiercely back to reality. 

Sark seemed to see it in her eyes, because he paused, heat simmering off of his skin, and waited. "I can't," she said, pushing him away, more gently than either she or he expected. 

"Of course you can't," he said, running a hand through his unruly blond hair, trying to compose himself. Shirtless and still hard, he stalked over to the table and picked up a bottle of Scotch. 

Sydney suddenly needed a drink, too. But not Scotch. She walked into the other room and pulled the cork from the bottle of Merlot that was sitting on the shelf. She poured it into a glass, watching the liquid fall, focusing on the color to distract herself from what had almost happened. 

 

X

 

**September**

"Love me and the world will end?" he asked with a wary bitterness. "The mountains shall crumble and the seas boil, red with blood?"

"You're being dramatic. I enjoy hating you, can't that be enough?" Sydney hated how much pain was held in her voice.

"No," he said. "It can't."

She bit down hard on her lip, feeling both violent and weak. "I don't want to love anything else. Love only causes me pain, makes everything fall apart. We need to stay the way we've always been. If I love you, I'm lost. Hating you keeps me grounded."

Sark fixed his eyes on her, a startling look that she was _not_ familiar with. "Pretend all you want, Sydney. Pretend you're not already lost."

X

The evenings were already holding a chill. It was nearly autumn. They were no closer to finding the supposed artifact, it had been months of dead ends and bad dreams, lust and Scotch and wine in so many shades of red. 

They hadn't touched each other since that fateful night, but things were tensed to a near-painful point for the both of them. 

Sark seemed to think that the mood was right for a story, and so he began, "A winemaker once told me that grapes grown under stressful conditions produce the best vintage. Like those grown on the side of a mountain. The water runs down and past them, the roots need to struggle to survive. See, the grapes that get water easily are fat and happy and sweet, they won't taste nearly so bold. The ones that survive through harshness, those are the rare ones. I love that taste."

Sydney thought about this, pictured vines hanging on, stubbornly clinging to life as the flavor was pulled from their suffering. There was something poetic in it, she had to admit.

A breeze slid in through the open window and ghosted across her skin, raising goosebumps. She caught the familiar, inexplicable scent of autumn. Maybe there was witchcraft in the air, because they moved toward each other like conjured spirits. Something was begging for completion. 

Her fingers wound into his hair; Sark's lips found hers and branded her with a searing, possessive kiss, no longer holding back, ready, ready to struggle. She gave in, memorizing the feeling of his lips, biting with her teeth. His hand came round and gripped the back of her neck. "Stop that," he said, pulling away, his expression dark and stern. "Just fucking _kiss_ me, don't attack me."

"I..." Sydney trailed off, not quite knowing how to admit she didn't know how, she was too frightened to kiss him. Drawing blood was simply her natural reaction with this man, injuring him was easy. 

"You want this to really hurt? Oh, it will. But not the way you're comfortable with." He pushed her against the wall, she let herself remain there, wary and curious and wanting. 

In what seemed like seconds, Sark had her pants and underwear down and off and her legs parted and then his mouth was on her. Kissing, licking, tasting, he was too slow, too gentle, being reverent, like she mattered to him, moaning softly against her like he'd been waiting for this. She'd been waiting for this, too, but hadn't known it, and now that she knew she hated him even more, hated him so deeply that the feeling crossed over into something else, like one of those snakes swallowing its own tail--

A dark, sweet, powerful climax built and then swallowed her, coaxing spasm after spasm, leaving her shaking, and it suddenly struck her how real it felt, how honest, how much it hurt to not pretend.

Sark stroked his hands softly along the skin of her thighs, now looking up at her. She glanced at him and expected to perhaps see a smug and self-satisfied expression but there was none of that, only a haunted and beautiful look, half-hidden by shadows, and Sydney knew they were both lost, now, but the struggle, oh the struggle, it had created something near-perfect.


End file.
